


Cat Scratch Fever

by Mooifyourecows



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Slow Burn, i'm not even ashamed, iwaizumi is the best boss ever, more characters will be added when they show up, of course, oikawa is a matchmaker from hell, they're both very awkward, yes daichi is a stripper, yes suga's life revolves around his cats
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 23:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14681454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mooifyourecows/pseuds/Mooifyourecows
Summary: "You give me cat scratch fever.""Did you know that cat scratch fever is a real disease? It's a bacterial infection also known as lymphoreticulosis-""Suga please, I'm trying to flirt.""Oh... go on then.""The moment's passed.""Sorry.""It's alright... I'm used to it."





	Cat Scratch Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The importance of a great first impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood:  
> [Folding Chair](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ7FCIHrl00)  
> "Maybe one day you will understand  
> I don't want nothing from you but to sweetly hold your hand."

“Oh thank god you’re here.”

Daichi froze at the sound of the voice.

A hand wrapped around his arm and pulled him to the left, the opposite direction in which he had been heading down the sidewalk.

“It was my fault. Really. I knew he hated the vacuum and I didn’t check to see if the windows were closed when I turned it on,” a clearly frazzled man in a pair of mint and lavender striped pajama pants, pink bunny slippers, and a t-shirt with the picture of a shrimp on the front rambled on at the speed of light as he dragged Daichi behind him.

Daichi stared at the messy grey hair curling at the base of his neck with wide eyes as he went on,

“But he usually hides underneath the bed! Only this time, see my mom gave me these bookshelves but I don’t  _need_ bookshelves and I haven’t had the time to sell them online so I just slid them under my bed because I have literally no space for them anywhere else in the apartment. So he couldn’t fit his fucking lardface underneath there and yeah, I suppose that’s partially my fault for feeding him too much but he looks so  _sad_ if his bowl is empty for even a  _second_  and I’ve never been all that strong when it comes to my pets. I want to give them the world and I feel so guilty and-”

“Si-Sir,” Daichi tried to cut the stream short, but he ignored him.

“So, long story short, I spilled some chips on the carpet and I was going to just pick them up individually but I went to get the trashcan and when I came back in, I forgot where they were and wasn’t paying attention and then  _stepped_ on them and so they were all crushed and I couldn’t pick them up like that. That would take forever! And I was right in the middle of a Netflix binge and couldn’t spare the time-”

“Sir,” Daichi tried again. The man didn’t slow as he pulled him down the sidewalk in the direction of the park.

“So I whip out the vacuum and I just didn’t even think about him as I turned it on and the next thing I know, there’s this super loud  _crash_  from the kitchen and I go in there and the mother fucker knocked out the screen and escaped! So I chase after him, because that piece of shit is my only friend and there’s no way I’m losing him to a vacuum-”

“Sir, please, I’m-”

“Anyway, I found him here,” the man yanked him to a tree and finally released his arm. He faced him at last and Daichi gulped.

_Oh shit. He’s cute._

“He’s up there,” the man pointed up into a tree. “Please get him down so we can continue our binge of  _Call the Midwife.”_

Daichi glanced up. Far above their heads, nestled in the crook of two thick branches, a large, black cat clutched onto the bark of the tree, wide yellow eyes staring down at them in terror as he mewled pitifully.

“Please save my lardface, Fireman-sama.”

Daichi swallowed, “Ah… actually. There seems to be a bit of a mix-up…”

“Tell me about it. The mix-up is that a cat  _that_ fat belongs on the ground. Not in a tree,” the man said.

“No… uh… not like that…”

“Please hurry, he’s going to fall down and if I tried to catch him he’d probably break my arms off of my body.”

“I’d love to help you but I’m not a real fireman, I’m…”

The man cupped his mouth with both hands and shouted up to the cat, “It’s gonna be okay, Baby! This brave fireman is going to save you!”

Daichi’s mouth went dry. “No, listen to me…”

“Do you need to get your ladder or something? I mean, there are branches you could climb…”

“No… Lardface can probably climb back down…”

The man let out a barking laugh and propped his hands up on his hips. “Are you kidding? He’s never climbed a tree in his life. He can’t even get onto the counter without a step ladder.”

“… please listen…”

“It’s not that I’m a bad caretaker, okay?” the man stressed, staring at him intently. “I swear. I give him all the love he needs and I even have plenty of toys to play with but he’s just not interested in exercise. All he does is eat and sleep and maybe bat around a feather toy if I dangle it in front of his face. That’s pretty much it though, I can’t get him to-”

“I’M A STRIPPER!”

Daichi blurted it out. He didn’t mean to, really. He was going to come up with another excuse as to why he couldn’t help the man fetch his cat from the tree, but in the end, the truth made its way past his lips.

At least the other man was finally silent.

He stared at Daichi with wide, hazel eyes, hair somehow standing even more on end after the sudden confession.

Daichi’s face burned and he pressed a hand over his eyes, wishing for a swift death to remove him from the awkward situation.

“Huh?” the man finally said. “A…”

Daichi let out a sigh and lowered his hand to his side. He glanced down at the outfit he had donned that afternoon before heading out for a Strippergram from which he had been heading home before getting snatched up by the stranger.

He couldn’t blame him for mistaking him for a real fireman. The outfit was convincing. After all, it  _used_ to be a real fireman’s uniform, until Daichi had it tweaked to suit his… occupational needs.

“A stripper?” the man repeated, turning fully towards him. “What? Really?”

Daichi sighed again, “I just got done doing a birthday party and was on my way home… I didn’t feel like changing and hauling my gear around so I just left it…”

“A stripper?” he said again. “Are you sure? Are you just trying to swerve me?”

“Swerve?”

“Yeah, like you just got done with a long day at work and you don’t have the energy to help me so you’re making up a lame excuse-”

Daichi reached down, grabbed the thick fabric of his pants and then yanked forward. The buttons on the sides of the legs unclasped and he ripped the clothing off of his body.

The man’s eyes widened impossibly further as he stared down at Daichi’s tight, short, boxer briefs.

He dropped the pants to the side.

“Believe me now?”

“ _HAHAHAHAHA!”_

Daichi closed his eyes.

“ _HAHAHAHAHAHA! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”_

“Sir… please…”

“Oh my god. Oh my god, this is great.”

Daichi opened his eyes again.

The man clutched his stomach, tears streaming down his cheeks, skin flushed. “Oh man,” he groaned. “I wish I had a friend other than my stupid fat cat to tell about this…”

Daichi scowled, “Are you done?”

He giggled for another minute before controlling himself once more. He cleared his throat, eyes flickering back and forth between Daichi’s exposed thighs to the tree trunk.

“Sorry,” he finally said. “Uhm… okay. Sorry I bugged you. I’ll… I’ll let you get home then…” He snorted again and then turned to the tree. “I’ll find out how to get him down on my own, I guess.”

Daichi watched him for a long moment as he started talking to the cat.

“Okay, so listen,” he said with complete confidence. “If you come down right now, I will buy you that one tuna you really like. And I’ll put it in that one bowl with the little fishes on it and then I’ll carry you around the apartment on a velvet pillow.”

The man’s face brightened and he smiled wide, “I’ll even share my pillow at night! I know you like mine better than the three I gave you. Oh, and I’ll stop buying collars with bells on them. I know you like to pretend you’re sneaky when you sneak into the bathroom when I’m bathing.”

Daichi was speechless.

He really couldn’t believe it.

He was standing in the middle of a public park in a shimmery pair of flaming underwear in broad daylight and he was surprisingly  _not_ the most pathetic person in the vicinity.

This poor guy. 

He barely knew him…

No, scratch that. Daichi  _didn’t_  know him. But it was clear as day, even without the multiple confessions, that that cat was this man’s only companion.

And there was just no way he could leave him alone.

“I’ll bet a dog chased you up there, huh?” the man said. “Okay. I’ve got an idea. I’ll find that dog and throw him up into the tree with you, then he can chase you back down. How does that sound? Was it a Rottweiler? A Pomeranian? Border Collie? Alaskan Malamute?”

Daichi let out a deep sigh and picked up his pants. He snapped them back onto his legs and then approached the tree.

“Stand back,” he commanded.

“Eh?” he stepped back. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going to climb this tree.” Daichi stretched his neck from side to side and cracked his knuckles.

“Oh you don’t have to do that. What if you fell and hurt yourself? Your stripping days would be over.”

Daichi scowled. “Shut up.” He grabbed a low branch, tested its strength, and then pulled himself up onto it.

“Wait! You don’t have to do this! I… I can do it!” The man rushed up behind him, reaching his hands up worriedly. “He’s my cat, so I can-”

“Just let me rescue your pussy and we can go our separate ways like God intended.”

“Well, actually, I don’t believe in God. I mean, I used to. I was raised Catholic, if you’ll believe it,” he laughed awkwardly. “But then, when I was twelve, I prayed that my cat Luffy would live through his operation. But unfortunately, he didn’t survive. I was heartbroken, as one might expect.”

Daichi furrowed his brows and pulled himself up to the next branch.

“So then, after that, I just didn’t really believe in him anymore. I mean… he is supposed to be this really loving, benevolent being, right? But he didn’t answer my prayer even though I was a really good kid. Like, I got good grades and I never did anything bad and I went to church on the weekends… oh but anyway. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself an  _atheist_ -”

_Shut up._

_Holy shit._

Daichi tried to tune the mindless rabble out as he climbed, eyes centered on the cat directly above him as it meowed against the bark, but the man’s voice rose to follow him.

“I think there’s something, you know? I just don’t think it’s something as simple as a bearded guy in the sky. I think each person has their own special force that leads them. And it’s ever changing and vast and beautiful. And praying to it isn’t going to get you things. Like… Santa Claus. I think it’s more like a guardian angel, sort of-”

“Holy fuck,” Daichi muttered.

_Does this guy ever shut up?_

He grabbed onto one of the branches the fat cat was straddling and hauled himself up.

The man down below quieted and Daichi thanked God- or whatever- for the silence.

“Here kitty, kitty,” Daichi called, wiggling his fingers towards the animal. “Here Lardface…”

The cat meowed loudly and scrabbled towards him. Daichi’s eyes widened as the creature leapt and latched onto his face, claws hooking into his scalp.

Daichi hissed and reached up to yank the cat off of him, but lost his grip on the tree and instantly slipped. His shoulder slammed into the trunk and then the rest of his body started to fall. He threw his hands out, groping for anything to hang on to.

“Ahh!” the man cried out.

Daichi’s hands slapped against branches, sending stinging pain up his arms. His elbow slammed down onto one branch and slowed his descent, but when he tried to hold onto it, he slipped off and continued down, legs thrashing.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ Daichi’s mind played on repeat.

He was going to die. He was going to die in his least favorite stripping outfit, with a cat attached to his face, in front of the world’s most talkative crazy cat person. When the police showed up to the scene, he would probably talk their ears off and Daichi would rot right there in the middle of the park.

His hand caught a branch and he held tight. His body swung forward and then his grip failed once more.

Luckily, he was close enough to the ground at that point that when the other man lunged forward and stupidly attempted to catch him in his arms, they both collapsed to the grass in a virtually uninjured heap.

“Oww…”

The cat peeled itself off of his face and for a moment, Daichi just lay on his back on top of the other man, staring up at the fading light of the sky.

_I’m alive._

_“Oww…”_ the other man moaned again and Daichi rolled off of him.

“Are you okay?” he climbed to his knees and stared down at him.

The man sat up and rubbed his tailbone with a wince. “I’m okay… what about-”

The cat let out a wail and leapt into the man’s chest.

“ _CHEEKLES!”_ He wrapped his arms around the pet and hugged him tightly.

_Cheekles?_ Daichi cocked an eyebrow.  _So his name isn’t actually Lardface?_

The man laughed gleefully, tears slipping out of his eyes and dripping down his cheeks and off of his jaw. The cat mewled and purred loud enough that Daichi could practically feel the rumbling in the ground beneath him. The man sniffled and buried his face in the cat’s hair.

“I was so worried,” he sobbed. “Don’t run off like that ever again. You could have gotten hurt, or  _worse_. What would I have done  _then?”_

Daichi watched him silently for a whole minute, chest warming at the affectionate- albeit somewhat endearingly pathetic- display.

When the man finally pulled away from the cat and wiped the moisture from his cheeks with the fabric of his shirt, he turned to Daichi.

He sniffled and smiled wide, corners of his bloodshot eyes crinkling.

“Thank you so much! I don’t… I don’t know what I would have done without you. You’re truly my guardian angel today.”

Daichi flushed and looked away, “N-nah. It was nothing…”

“I should reward you somehow.”

“That’s not nece-”

The man rolled to his knees and stretched out towards Daichi, resting one hand down on his shoulder. Daichi looked at him in surprise the instant he leaned up and pressed his lips softly to his, eyes closed.

Daichi froze in place.

_What._

_What._

_What._

The man kissed him for a long, gentle moment before pulling away. Daichi’s lips unexpectedly attempted to give chase before he realized what he was doing and leaned back.

Daichi blinked at him in astonishment, thoroughly flustered and out of breath, heart fluttering wildly in his chest.

“Thank you,” the man said again, tenderly. “Really… I can’t thank you enough.”

“You can try,” Daichi whispered. His eyes went wide and he slapped a hand over his mouth.

The man let out a laugh and pressed his hands to his eyes. Cheekles meowed and rubbed lovingly against his leg, staring up at him with wide yellow eyes.

The man cleared his throat and lowered his hands, smiling, cheeks bright red.

“Uhm…” he reached down and lifted his fat cat into his arms, holding him against his chest. He climbed to his feet and Daichi quickly did the same, brushing grass and leaves from his now filthy clothes.

The man eyed him meekly for a moment before saying, “My name is Sugawara Koushi, by the way…”

“O-oh… I’m Sawamura Daichi,” he sheepishly scratched the back of his head.

“So…” Sugawara said, looking away. “Uhm… me and Cheekles are going to go home and watch some more Netflix… uh… if you aren’t busy… you are welcome to join us…”

Daichi stared at him silently.

“If you want!” Sugawara rushed. “Uh… and we don’t have to watch  _Call the Midwife_ either… it’s a little depressing anyway.” He laughed awkwardly. “We could watch something you like. Like… uh… I dunno…  _Magic Mike?”_

Daichi let out a loud, barking laugh, startling a jump out of Sugawara.

“Just because I’m a stripper doesn’t mean I only watch things about strippers,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair.

“O-oh… well, I thought so. That wouldn’t make sense, would it? If something like that were true, then I’d only want to watch things about cats and dental assisting. Oh, I’m a dental assistant, by the way. And can I just say that you have really nice teeth? Like really white and straight. Did you have braces as a kid? I’ll bet my boss would love to have your face in our office’s commercials.”

Daichi laughed again, “Are we going to go watch Netflix, or what?”

Sugawara smiled softly and then straightened his shoulders, “Yeah! Let’s go!” He turned down the sidewalk and Daichi followed. “You know, in the future, you should be a little more careful about what costumes you wear in public. What if you were dressed as a police officer and then a crime happened and you got roped into it? That would be a mess. Though I suppose it’d make for a good story. One time when I was in high school…”

Daichi smiled and trailed along behind him as he continued to ramble on, a slight bounce to his step.

And some part of him hoped that he’d never shut up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written a while ago with the intention of being a cute little one shot.  
> But then I wrote more.  
> And then more.  
> So I decided that I will continue to do so and actually upload it here instead of just on Tumblr.  
> Sporadically.  
> Shhh... don't judge me....
> 
> Come yell at me on [Tumblr.](http://mooifyourecows.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Next Time:  
> "I swear you've got the wrong guy, Officer."


End file.
